Oooooh, this makes so much sense NOW.

It is fascinating being on this side of the wedding planning line. My sister got engaged last week, and tonight I saw her for the first time post engagement. I went in with a list of self imposed rules: No asking about wedding plans unless she brought it up (asking about the proposal and all of that, totally fine.) No sentences that start with charged sentiment like, "You know what's a great idea..." or "It'd be great if..."


And while *think* I managed to avoid all of those, I realize now that there are an infinite number of new ones I hadn't even considered. It's easy to overwhelm a bride. They go from zero to sixty literally over night. Plus my sister will be working her ass off on grad school admissions from now until December. If she gets accepted, she might have to try and sell her house. Her job is already more stressful than my day to day situation and now, a wedding.

It's hard b/c I want to communicate that I am here to be her slave, but I'm not sure how to do that w/o coming across overly excited or worse, pushy. It's easy on paper. Just say, "Sister. Anything you need, I can do. Please don't hesitate to ask." But I remember getting those and they overwhelmed me b/c *I* didn't know what I needed. Also, now upon reflection, I realize that a lot of wedding planning is talking out loud as if you're discussing something but really you're just thinking out loud and don't want discussion. All indicators point to, "I want feedback," but there is something about wedding planning that puts those indicators in there but they are false. Actually the person is just saying, "I'm thinking out loud b/c you asked me a question but please for the love of god don't tell me what you think would be a good idea."

I need to remember that.

The other thing I need to remember, my sister is not me. She is very very (very) different than me. A lot of what I'm excited about with this whole living in Portland thing is that for the first time in my life, I really get a chance to get to know her. I have basically a year before she moves across the country. But I have an advantage from the last time we lived briefly in the same city, now I *know* I want to get to know her. And this is the first time in my life I've felt this way. Or at least felt this way enough to know to act on it. So I won't say the right things all the time, but I'm excited that whether it be through wedding stuff (and it may not be) or through just a monthly night out for drinks, this is the year of the sister.

*Side story: One of the coolest things a friend did before our wedding was email me and basically say, "Hey, we're around to help and if you need it ask. If you don't need it, don't even bother responding to this email."

What was so great about this was that she knew (a recent bride herself) that the wedding day (and day prior) are kind of stressful. So stressful in fact that you may not even have time to respond to an email. May not even have the mental capacity to hit, "Reply" and type, "No thank you." The gift was two fold: The help and the permission to not respond. Lovely.